Today I had the honor of meeting President Obama and shaking his
hand!

The President was at Penn
State to provide more
detail on the State of the Union plan to "Win the Future" through
energy efficiency. (see my last blog entry which I wrote before I was informed
I would go to this meeting with the President) He first toured some of the smarter building
work in the Penn State Labs and then moved to the U Penn rec. center to address
a larger crowd of professors, students, and business leaders.

President Obama announced
his "Better Buildings Initiative" with a goal to improve energy efficiency by 20%.He mentioned the importance of Penn State
as one the 3 energy HUB projects in the country to provide innovative smarter
building leadership.He called out IBM
as an important part of this project.That
made us feel pretty damn proud!

Some of my favorite quotes from today: “ Show us your ideas, we’ll show you the money “ “ We will fund this by diverting funding that is currently given
to the major oil companies …they are doing just fine on their own” “Smarter Buildings may not be as sexy as some other green projects
your hear about but they are most important given they contribute 40% of the
carbon emissions in our country” “ Study and create solutions as if the country depends on
it…(pause for effect)...because it does! ”

Here are the high level
actions:

New
tax incentives for building efficiency

·More
financing opportunities for commercial retrofits

·“Race
to Green” for state and municipal governments that streamline regulations and
attract private investment for retrofit projects

·The
Better Buildings Challenge

·Training the next generation of commercial building
technology workers